San Jose: As street violence mounts, city has lively anti-gang summit

SAN JOSE -- Warriors in the crusade against gang violence converged and listened to success stories on Saturday but got no easy answers, guarantees or reinforcement.

Besieged by a double-digit increase in major crimes and a 20-year record in homicides, San Jose staged its fifth annual Crime and Gang Prevention Summit. And while many questions remained, the heartfelt and wrenching testimony of ex-gang members served to reinforce the conviction that the fight is worth all the effort.

The city's collaboration with the community through the Mayor's Gang Task Force is a model admired across the country, Mayor Chuck Reed told about 250 summit participants. Others noted that without the stellar work of the task force, San Jose could end up like crime-scarred cities such as Oakland and Chicago.

Still, gang-related homicides in San Jose have reached 18 in each of the past three years, up from six before that, said Fernando López, who coordinates the city's Safe Schools Initiative.

Whereas before Norteño gangs have usually been aggressors, today rival Sureño members are increasingly assertive and armed. And they are joining growing forces with members from the Salinas Valley, north and south county and Los Angeles, López said. In addition, said Leebo Pomele of the California Youth Outreach, both sides are taking advantage of the easy availability of guns and are engaging in an arms race.

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Overall gang activity has increased for many reasons, López said. He indicated the number of inmates leaving prison with orders to increase outside activity, including the stepping up of recruitment and retaliation. Some at the meeting noted an effect on gang activity due to the new state program that moves felons from state prison to county jails.

Leaving gangs

One of Lopez's programs -- Late Night Programming -- helps youth leave gangs, and he sometimes negotiates with gangs to enable that often dangerous transition. It's not an easy thing, especially for longtime members. For gangs, López said, "having an ex-member outside their control is a liability."

Just as joining a gang requires an violent initiation ("jumping in"), so does leaving it. Sometimes, an exiting member may not survive the physical pounding of getting "jumped out."

But that may be only the beginning.

"I fear retaliation every night," said one 20-year-old ex-Sureño, who left the gang after two close friends died. Now he goes to school full time to become a medical assistant and works a full-time job.

After his shift ends at 3 a.m., he gets in bed and wonders, "Am I going to wake up in the morning?" he said. "I am always watching my back."

Leaving the gang life demands motivation.

For Maria Perez, 51, a speaker at the forum, that was being stabbed by her own gang members, for talking to someone she wasn't supposed to be talking to. "They say, 'If you say something I'm going to kill you.' And they almost did."

Later, her father was shot twice in a drive-by attack. "My whole family paid a hell of a price to get out of the neighborhood" -- meaning for her and her four brothers to leave the gang.

Likewise, Elizabeth Campos, 22, had a revelation, she said, that God had a different plan for her. Campos simply didn't want her younger sisters and her daughter, 4, to live the same life that she had endured.

There is no good life for women in gangs, both women said. Women are abused as drug mules, fall gals and sex objects. "They are also disposable," Perez said. If a woman refuses an order, "they will take you out."

It's not uncommon for young women in gangs to be sexually assaulted, they said. "It happens all the time, and it's not talked about. It's part of the territory, part of the lifestyle," Perez said. "You can't say no to someone who has a lot of power."

Campos agreed. Young women don't speak out about the sometimes horrific assaults. "You just want to let it all disappear."

Blocking the intake

Eventually, pain, loss or grace may enable a few to extricate themselves from gang life. The city's Late Night program helped Tania Martinez, 19, who now focuses on her job and raising her 1-year-old daughter.

But blocking the terrible gang pipeline at its intake requires intensive work.

"You have to start at an elementary age," Perez said. For girls, that's fourth grade, when she said either academic failure, peer pressure, the beginnings of puberty or the pressures of poverty or abuse kick in and overwhelm youngsters. She asserted that by middle school, it's too late to try diverting kids.

Campos said that for children growing up without after-school piano lessons or other amenities of middle-class life, fun and engaging programs are important. But more than that are love and understanding, from family, teachers and caring people in the community.

As a drug and alcohol counselor, Perez said she hears from young gang members that they're willing to die for their neighborhood or their colors. "But they haven't paid a price yet," she said. "It's up to us to expose the lie."